Fear, the Motivator
When I‘m afraid I put my trust in you. Psalm 56:3
The negative motivation of fear is a very real tool of Satan to try to isolate us and make us self-dependent. We see an example of this with Eve and then with Adam as Satan approached them in the garden. Adam and Eve were motivated by the fear of not experiencing or having. Satan knew that the fear of not having or experiencing was an overwhelming temptation; he later tried this same technique when tempting Jesus in the desert. This is the ploy used by Satan to trick you into making decisions not based on truth, but on the false influence of the one who is here to destroy you.
If you stay up late some night, after Colbert and the “Tonight Show” are done, and you see the paid programming takeover, it’s all about the limited time offer. You can get two ShamWows for the price of one! So you go against your better judgment and your common sense (and your bank balance) and you get sold. That bleary-eyed late-night sale is made out of the fear of either not having or not experiencing.
It’s a positive thing to analyze the losses and that’s what we did with Adam and Eve: we analyzed the loss in order to learn and to say, “Okay, this is what they did, this is what happened; they bit down and they took the bait so that we can learn how to move not in fear but in faith.”
Stay intimate with the reality that God created you, God loves you. As soon as you decide to let God be God and you do the things that refresh that vision of God in your life––spiritual disciplines, talking with God, spending time with God, being with God, being with other people of God, studying the losses––then the advantage of faith over fear will kick in.
Father, it’s all about the true or false question isn’t it? Help me choose Your truth and freedom.